Well, the oil-fired central heating in my new (old) house is back up and running. Made the house feel much more cheery with warm radiators!
Unfortunately, this evening was just a test run to see that everything works okay. The plumber will come back tomorrow evening and set everything in place properly, and then run some tests (most importantly a carbon monoxide reading) and fit the timer. Hopefully that will be the end of this saga, and I'll be able to heat the house for a couple or three hours each day.
Whilst the plumber was busy inside, I was outside used the stiff one I bought yesterday to sweep the rear concrete and paved area that I'd tidied up yesterday, And then started pruning back the overgrowth around and over the old stone sheds that were in the photograph I posted a few week ago (here). There are an awful lot of briars and brambles to clear, as well as ivy, so it's going to be a slow tedious job as (a) I don't want to be scratched too badly, and (b) there's a subsided slated roof on the sheds and I would hope to save the slates rather than damage them. And I really need to get some gardening gloves, as I got a number of scratches today.
I'm just hoping the weather stay reasonably dry, so I can get on with this outside work for a few more days. Albert is welcome to the rainy weather we usually get over here in Ireland.